I know the question in all your minds is how long it took Clarence Thomas, the justice who wrote today’s Supreme Court decision finding that there is “a constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense” to get to the newest right-wing talking point about guns? It took him just nine lines, one of which was entirely devoted to a citation from a previous Supreme Court case, before came out and told us who he was really talking to: “The petitioners…are adult law-abiding New York residents…” etc.
Justice Thomas doesn't read that part of the original constitution that says negros will count as 3/5 of a person......Originalism applies only to the things they want it to.
Before I saw your comment I was just about to note that the founders had lots of intentions, some deeply and tenaciously held, that we later found were inconsistent with a civilized, successful, stable, and safe society.
They were already fighting about the slavery issue in the constitutional conventions. Vermont in 1777, and New York a few years later, went about making it illegal in their state constitutions. In the U.S. Constitution they somehow or other arrived at 1808 as a key date for the earliest year slave imports could be banned, not sure how they arrived at that date. Slavery was so commonly accepted around the world, along with serfdom and no rights to choose your leaders, this was actually a step forward, incredibly enough. But as it was left unsolved, the roots of a bloody civil war were also left more or less intact as well.
These attacks on sane gun laws are all part and parcel of the crackpot right wing's ascension in the GOP. A lunatic fringe with position to call the shots and pretend their extreme views are reasonable. Lucian is correctly emphasizing key problems, like the incredible disparity between modern firearm and muskets. No way would those Founders have not written the Second Amendment with some attention to that, had their era's firearms been so deadly, so able to wreak mass carnage.
Also have wonder how these right wing extremists manage to live with themselves, "how they sleep soundly at night," etc. --- possibly they have been getting away with sloppy thinking, and being applauded as "Super Patriots," for so many years, and with so many accompanying financial perks, they would not even understand how others can be appalled.
"Are we not by definition the most successful and admirable American law school graduates, after all, we are on the Supreme Court! That we are morally good and wise souls, it's practically an apodictic truth, a tautology!"
Oh, yes! “ . . .possibly they have been getting away with sloppy thinking, and being applauded as "Super Patriots," for so many years, and with so many accompanying financial perks, they would not even understand how others can be appalled.”
Suck it up, Americans, I’m a Supreme Court justice. You’re not.
All the more reason for us to demand the impeachment of Thomas, especially. The last two who rushed through the process, should be prepared to resign. The Federalist Society has done enough to destroy our precious nation.
Yes, no way was Anita Hill confabulating her version of what went on, but he got away with it, and his wingnut views are plaguing the nation in multiple ways. Next up is striking down reproductive freedom and privacy rights.
As an historian I find it both maddening and difficult to read such insanity as Justice Thomas writes. That the "guns" available when the Constitution was written were single shot and hard to load- never mind fire multiple times and not anything one was carrying around in one's pocket or purse seems not to be an issue for those who claim to be originalists. (sorry about the run -on-sentence)
Something that might buck you up at least a little, so food for thought, etc. :
claremontreviewofbooks.com/rip-leonard-w-levy/ The late Professor Levy wrote the indispensible book Original Intent and the Framer's Constitution (1988), taking on the theories of the execrable Robert Bork, also a wonderful, fascinating book about blasphemy (Blasphemy: Verbal offense against the sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie, 1993.)
Where is the sane reasoning of Thurgood Marshall on all sorts of guns and when you should have them and when you shouldn't. This country has gone nuts over the "right" to have guns. The 2nd Amendment has been bastardized beyond recognition and just glancing at a few lines of it says these SC justices are stupid if they claim they've read it and twisted it and the words of "our forefathers" to make it mean what it does today. The SC is now what Roberts is said to have cringed hearing it called, a completely political body. Nothing more. It's sickening.
What I want to know is: Does this decision allow me to carry a weapon into the Supreme Court Building? And if not, why not? What makes them so special?
In 2018 my best friend introduced me to her wonderful neighbor, Raymond Kethledge, who had made his famous pecan pie for her. She was dying of multiple sclerosis. Kethledge and his wife really impressed me as genuinely warm, compassionate, and caring. After they left, my friend told me he was on Trump's short list for the Supreme Court. Brett Cavanaugh was on that same list. Wikkipedia notes: "When Kethledge is in northern Michigan, he works in an office he created in a family barn near Lake Huron. The office has a wood stove for heat and a pine desk for a work space.[42] He has spoken publicly about hunting with his son in the Michigan wilderness." Maybe Kethledge is as much an "originalist" as the barf bags on SCOTUS now. But all the northern Michigan wood burning hunters I know are opposed to assault weapons, bump stocks, hollow points, and this Supreme Court ruling. Vote Blue in '22, and expand The Court. Our lives depend on it.
I have spent some time and effort at the Second Amendment and its various visits to courtrooms, and from what I've seen today this decision starts at Heller (which is a typically sloppy Scalia bag-job, combining a willful misunderstanding of history with a mangled and partial interpretation of some of the Second Amendment to invent a right that never before existed), takes a sharp right turn and heads full speed to the coast, unsupported by precedent or common sense. This is as bad as judicial decisions get, and it's hard not to think that there's worse yet to come from this bunch.
Sophistry is the curse of a rational society. Judge Thomas thinks he's fooling everyone, he is not. All Americans already understand the Roberts Court is becoming the 'White boy, white values' court. In time the public will give these reactionaries the boot. What is tragic is how many innocents will die before reform arrives.
It's an insane, disgusting NRA enabled ruling that was issued today.
In my opinion, the court no longer has any validity or usefulness for a proper Supreme Court. They blew their entire reason for existence with this ruling, and I don't recognize them any more as being relevant to this country.
They no longer work for justice but they work for the people who pay them enough to rule for them.
Oh God, this country is so spoiling for a civil war and bloodbath. The fascistas can almost taste it. The NRA-bought dogs on the Court have obligingly rolled over as ordered. The rest of the world clearly sees how the USA has gone off the deep end.
I guess I'm off to my local hunting store to buy that howitzer I need.
The bullet wasn't invented until 1849. How can anyone pretend to know what the founders would think about anyone (over 18) being able to buy and openly carry weapons of war?
And since we're well past musket technology, why stop at semi-automatic weapons? Why not legalize machine guns, grenade launchers...hell, how about personal nukes?
Justice Thomas doesn't read that part of the original constitution that says negros will count as 3/5 of a person......Originalism applies only to the things they want it to.
Before I saw your comment I was just about to note that the founders had lots of intentions, some deeply and tenaciously held, that we later found were inconsistent with a civilized, successful, stable, and safe society.
You zeroed in on one such example.
Shame on Thomas.
They were already fighting about the slavery issue in the constitutional conventions. Vermont in 1777, and New York a few years later, went about making it illegal in their state constitutions. In the U.S. Constitution they somehow or other arrived at 1808 as a key date for the earliest year slave imports could be banned, not sure how they arrived at that date. Slavery was so commonly accepted around the world, along with serfdom and no rights to choose your leaders, this was actually a step forward, incredibly enough. But as it was left unsolved, the roots of a bloody civil war were also left more or less intact as well.
These attacks on sane gun laws are all part and parcel of the crackpot right wing's ascension in the GOP. A lunatic fringe with position to call the shots and pretend their extreme views are reasonable. Lucian is correctly emphasizing key problems, like the incredible disparity between modern firearm and muskets. No way would those Founders have not written the Second Amendment with some attention to that, had their era's firearms been so deadly, so able to wreak mass carnage.
Also have wonder how these right wing extremists manage to live with themselves, "how they sleep soundly at night," etc. --- possibly they have been getting away with sloppy thinking, and being applauded as "Super Patriots," for so many years, and with so many accompanying financial perks, they would not even understand how others can be appalled.
"Are we not by definition the most successful and admirable American law school graduates, after all, we are on the Supreme Court! That we are morally good and wise souls, it's practically an apodictic truth, a tautology!"
Oh, yes! “ . . .possibly they have been getting away with sloppy thinking, and being applauded as "Super Patriots," for so many years, and with so many accompanying financial perks, they would not even understand how others can be appalled.”
Suck it up, Americans, I’m a Supreme Court justice. You’re not.
Aunt Ginni told him it was all right to take on what she thinks and use it to mete out justice in the good old U.S.
This court has declared war on the American people. It’s a Death Court.
All the more reason for us to demand the impeachment of Thomas, especially. The last two who rushed through the process, should be prepared to resign. The Federalist Society has done enough to destroy our precious nation.
Who needs Trump when you have this travesty?
I'm still pissed that they did not make him take a lie-detector test during the Anita Hill hearings. He was, is and always will be scum.
Yes, no way was Anita Hill confabulating her version of what went on, but he got away with it, and his wingnut views are plaguing the nation in multiple ways. Next up is striking down reproductive freedom and privacy rights.
It was Prime Time porn on network TV.
As an historian I find it both maddening and difficult to read such insanity as Justice Thomas writes. That the "guns" available when the Constitution was written were single shot and hard to load- never mind fire multiple times and not anything one was carrying around in one's pocket or purse seems not to be an issue for those who claim to be originalists. (sorry about the run -on-sentence)
Must stop now as I need to throw up.
Something that might buck you up at least a little, so food for thought, etc. :
claremontreviewofbooks.com/rip-leonard-w-levy/ The late Professor Levy wrote the indispensible book Original Intent and the Framer's Constitution (1988), taking on the theories of the execrable Robert Bork, also a wonderful, fascinating book about blasphemy (Blasphemy: Verbal offense against the sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie, 1993.)
www.goodreads.com/book/show/537763.Blasphemy
Where is the sane reasoning of Thurgood Marshall on all sorts of guns and when you should have them and when you shouldn't. This country has gone nuts over the "right" to have guns. The 2nd Amendment has been bastardized beyond recognition and just glancing at a few lines of it says these SC justices are stupid if they claim they've read it and twisted it and the words of "our forefathers" to make it mean what it does today. The SC is now what Roberts is said to have cringed hearing it called, a completely political body. Nothing more. It's sickening.
What I want to know is: Does this decision allow me to carry a weapon into the Supreme Court Building? And if not, why not? What makes them so special?
Does it also include airports and planes?
Cruise ships? Trains?
Good points all.
In 2018 my best friend introduced me to her wonderful neighbor, Raymond Kethledge, who had made his famous pecan pie for her. She was dying of multiple sclerosis. Kethledge and his wife really impressed me as genuinely warm, compassionate, and caring. After they left, my friend told me he was on Trump's short list for the Supreme Court. Brett Cavanaugh was on that same list. Wikkipedia notes: "When Kethledge is in northern Michigan, he works in an office he created in a family barn near Lake Huron. The office has a wood stove for heat and a pine desk for a work space.[42] He has spoken publicly about hunting with his son in the Michigan wilderness." Maybe Kethledge is as much an "originalist" as the barf bags on SCOTUS now. But all the northern Michigan wood burning hunters I know are opposed to assault weapons, bump stocks, hollow points, and this Supreme Court ruling. Vote Blue in '22, and expand The Court. Our lives depend on it.
The judge had compassion for others, a trait Trump has made obsolete.
😔
And of course, as been said by many, they're all law-abiding gun owners right up until the moment they're not.
Exactly. Nearly every mass shooter had not committed a crime until the first murders.
I have spent some time and effort at the Second Amendment and its various visits to courtrooms, and from what I've seen today this decision starts at Heller (which is a typically sloppy Scalia bag-job, combining a willful misunderstanding of history with a mangled and partial interpretation of some of the Second Amendment to invent a right that never before existed), takes a sharp right turn and heads full speed to the coast, unsupported by precedent or common sense. This is as bad as judicial decisions get, and it's hard not to think that there's worse yet to come from this bunch.
Sophistry is the curse of a rational society. Judge Thomas thinks he's fooling everyone, he is not. All Americans already understand the Roberts Court is becoming the 'White boy, white values' court. In time the public will give these reactionaries the boot. What is tragic is how many innocents will die before reform arrives.
Vote Blue in '22.
It's an insane, disgusting NRA enabled ruling that was issued today.
In my opinion, the court no longer has any validity or usefulness for a proper Supreme Court. They blew their entire reason for existence with this ruling, and I don't recognize them any more as being relevant to this country.
They no longer work for justice but they work for the people who pay them enough to rule for them.
Oh God, this country is so spoiling for a civil war and bloodbath. The fascistas can almost taste it. The NRA-bought dogs on the Court have obligingly rolled over as ordered. The rest of the world clearly sees how the USA has gone off the deep end.
I guess I'm off to my local hunting store to buy that howitzer I need.
This country will be undone by the Court sworn to protect it. Well done, Mitch.
The bullet wasn't invented until 1849. How can anyone pretend to know what the founders would think about anyone (over 18) being able to buy and openly carry weapons of war?
And since we're well past musket technology, why stop at semi-automatic weapons? Why not legalize machine guns, grenade launchers...hell, how about personal nukes?
Insanity indeed.
All crimes committed with a bullet, death penalty!
Can someone please mail him photos of those dead kids
PLEASE!!!